Anne Lamott and Redemptive Abortion

The writer Anne Lamott, supposedly a Christian and an evangelical, and who spoke at last year's RCA Women's Triennial, recently participated in a forum on abortion, the substance of which appeared in her own editorial in the L.A. Times (I originally read about this on Dr. Mohler's blog).

"I announced that I needed to speak out on behalf of the many women present in the crowd, including myself, who had had abortions, and the women whose daughters might need one in the not-too-distant future -- people who must know that teenage girls will have abortions, whether in clinics or dirty backrooms. Women whose lives had been righted and redeemed by Roe vs. Wade. My answer was met with some applause but mostly a shocked silence. More: And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between pro-abortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie. Then I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's god**** business. This got their attention. A cloud of misery fell over the room, and the stage. Finally, Jim said something unifying enough for us to proceed -- that liberals must not treat people with opposing opinions on abortion with contempt and exclusion, partly because it's tough material, and partly because it is so critical that we win these next big elections. Finally: But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society. During the reception, an old woman came up to me, and said, "If you hadn't spoken out, I would have spit," and then she raised her fist in the power salute. We huddled together for awhile, and ate M&Ms to give us strength. It was a kind of communion, for those of us who still believe that civil rights and equality and even common sense will somehow be sovereign, some day."

The phrase that got me was,"Women whose lives were righted and redeemed by Roe V. Wade." Redemptive abortion? Is she kidding? Her self-conception as a sacred person demands the right to murder unborn children. That is simply astounding. Is the fetus "righted and redeemed?" Is society righted by wholesale slaughter of innocents? Then there is the phrase, "a woman's right to choose was nobody else's god**** business." Oh really. It's not God's business? It's not the childs? This perfectly captures the contemporary narcissism which pervades our culture and seeps like poison into the church.

I read one of Anne Lamott's novels, Blue Shoe. It was not memorable. It was messy and morally ambiguous and with a patina of liberal Christianity coating its pages. No wonder confusion abounds when such people are celebrated and feted in the churches, as "a cloud of misery falls over" the pews.